


the bellflower

by harinezumi_kun



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-07
Updated: 2012-07-07
Packaged: 2017-11-09 08:29:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/453426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harinezumi_kun/pseuds/harinezumi_kun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"this is the heart of the spell. it will stay strong as long as you are near."</p>
            </blockquote>





	the bellflower

**Author's Note:**

> based on a dream i had, self-beta, and written mostly for fun and as an excuse to 1)explore imagery 2)make ohno a fay creature (not exactly an elf prince, sorry elfie). there is very little plot. but i had fun writing it? :D; oh, and p.s: [this](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v203/pennytook/Bellflower502.jpg) is what a bell flower looks like :)

The pond is near the bottom of the wooded hill where Nino lives with his family. It is a small pond, barely two yards across, nestled in the roots of a towering pine tree that goes up and up before the branches even start. The bark is dark, thick, and feels old under Nino’s hand, feels like it’s breathing slowly. The pond is clear as glass, and just as still. Nino knows it is magic because despite this, the water never stagnates. It is always full of little glittering fish that flit across the grassy bottom like fireflies. And when Nino dips a finger in to send slow, solemn ripples across the surface, the sound of their lapping against the trunk of the pine is like tiny silver bells.

But it’s not just this. Nino can feel the pond’s magic calling to his own fledgling talent. The sparks he can sometimes conjure over the fireplace spring from his fingers and fall like sand, dancing across the water to die away in little hisses of smoke. He can make whirlwinds in the fallen leaves and pine-needles, and none of the animals fear him when he is here. The little fish come right up to nibble at his fingers, and frogs hop up onto his knees as if he is just another rock.

Bigger animals come, too, to drink from the pond, but they never mind Nino. He’s seen a bear and a mountain lion, both, been within inches of their massive paws and wicked teeth, without coming to any harm. The one he remembers best, though, is the stag.

The creature had approached in complete silence, and Nino had not noticed the stag until it was right beside him. He had seen its hooves first, cloven and wider than his hand, and then he had looked up. And up, and up. Crouched by the water as he was, Nino barely came up to the stag’s knee. It rose to twice his own height above him, with a great twelve-pointed crown of antlers on its head.

The animal stared down at him in complete stillness, and Nino froze. Terror, or awe, he couldn’t be sure. Slowly, unblinking, the stag bent its great head down until its nose touched Nino’s forehead. Nino closed his eyes and let out a shaking breath. He could feel the stag’s nose, cold and wet, and feel its snuffling breath humid against his skin. Long moments passed.

When Nino opened his eyes again, the stag was bent to the water, taking long gulps and sending out ripples in slowly expanding circles. Once it was finished, it turned and walked back into the forest as silently as it had come.

*

At the pond, Nino always feels eyes on him, but it is never frightening. It feels like a game, like the watcher wants his attention, but is always just out of sight. So Nino is not so surprised when, one day, he looks up and someone is looking back.

The boy perched on the roots of the big pine watches Nino with luminous eyes. His face is round--ageless and impossibly old--his skin is a translucent cinnamon brown, a lovely compliment to his fair auburn hair. He’s small like Nino, and dressed like Nino to the point that it seems intentional, except that instead of fabric his short coat and pants seem to be made of moss and spider-silk. But what really gives him away are the gentle points on both his ears.

“Hello,” Nino says. “I’m Nino. Who are you?”

“Hello,” the boy says, in a voice not unlike the sound of the ripples in the pond. “I...” He seems to think for a moment and then, almost a question: “I’m Satoshi.”

*

Satoshi teaches Nino more about the magic, although it’s hard to follow his explanations sometimes: he talks about it like recounting a dream, his demonstrations involve imperceptible flicks of a finger or blinks of an eye. Where Nino makes sparks, Satoshi makes dancing arcs of light; to Nino’s whirlwinds, Satoshi creates winds to make the trees dance. But Nino learns, if slowly.

In return, Nino teaches Satoshi about the war. This is as hard for Satoshi to understand as the magic lessons are for Nino.

“But why are they fighting?” Satoshi asks.

Nino shakes his head. “I don’t know the details--it’s people squabbling about who the land belongs to, just wanting more territory.” He watches closely as Satoshi skims his hand over the water and the surface hollows like a cup, then inverts to make a shimmering bubble.

“I don’t understand,” Satoshi says, and his bubble collapses. “Land does not belong to anyone.”

“Well, it doesn’t really matter,” Nino says. “It’s all the way on the other side of the kingdom, so no warriors ever come here. All the fighting magic, though, stirs up things in the forest...”

Nino shudders, and Satoshi lays a hand on his arm. The touch is as warm as the sunlight through the trees, as cool as the shadows on the water.

“Bad things,” Satoshi agrees softly.

Nino takes a deep breath. “So I need to learn this, to protect my family.”

He meets Satoshi’s eyes, fay and bottomless, and the other boy nods solemnly.

“I will help you.”

*

Years pass. Nino can tell the war is moving closer by the supply lines that pass on the big highway out in the valley, by the deepening shadows and ghostly forms that move through the forest at night. He knows time is running out, but by his sixteenth birthday, Nino has learned enough to protect his house and the forested hill all around it.

It is the height of summer. The air is thick as butter with humidity, but the pond is cool when Nino wades into it in only his underclothes. Satoshi follows him out but does not sink. Instead, he walks the surface of the water as easily as treading solid ground. After so many years, things like this do not surprise Nino as much as they once did.

Nino makes his slow way to the far side of the pond, in front of the tall pine. He can feel the fish nibbling curiously at his ankles, ticking against the hair on his legs. The water reaches his waist here, and Satoshi kneels behind him, placing his hands on Nino’s shoulders.

“Here?” Nino asks, touching a loamy crook in the roots.

“Yes,” Satoshi says. “Just like I showed you.”

Nino lets out a slow breath and lays his hands on the earth at the base of the tree. It is damp, spongey. He lets himself feel it breathing, and he slows down his own breath, his own blood, to match. He sends sparks out from his fingers, and they pulse through the soil, exciting the life that sleeps beneath it into growth. His awareness spreads as he works, down along the roots of the great pine, and up into its branches. Where roots and branches tangle with other trees, he spreads further, until he can feel the whole hill under the palms of his hands, even his house where his mother is outside taking in the laundry.

_Make it safe_ , he thinks into the trees and the dirt. _Make it safe._

Something begins to push out of the ground, up against his palms, sending little tendrils curling through his fingers. It grows and grows until the leafy stalk is level with his eyes. Then it begins to droop as a fat bulb forms at the top, like a giant, opaque raindrop. Suddenly, the green peels back from the bulb, curling up to reveal a glowing yellow blossom the size of his fist, shaped like--

“A bell,” he murmurs, and it swings in time to the sound of the ripples on the pond that radiate out from his body.

“A bellflower,” Satoshi confirms. Nino realizes that Satoshi’s arms have come around, mimicking the curve of Nino’s own, and Satoshi’s long fingers are curved around Nino’s hands, so they are both cupping the newborn flower. Nino is suddenly more aware of his still-growing body than ever before, all the places his skin meets Satoshi’s in that cool-warm touch, and Satoshi’s breath against the side of his neck.

“This is the heart of the spell,” Satoshi whispers, and Nino lets out an involuntary sharp breath. “It will stay strong, as long as you are near.”

“As long as you are near,” Nino repeats dumbly. “I mean. I’m near. If I’m near.”

“Yes,” Satoshi says on a soft laugh.

He pulls away, then, and Nino feels the trail of Satoshi’s fingers over his skin for days.

*

Two years later, in autumn, when the trees are a riot of reds and oranges and yellows like a slow sunset spreading over the hills, the draft comes. As the only man in his household, Nino is made to go into town every other day for training--if endless hours of marching and hefting unfamiliar weapons can really be called training. When he slips out of the house at night to go down to the pond, Satoshi is always waiting for him, and it is strange to see the worried lines marring his ethereal face.

“It’s fading,” Satoshi says simply. “You should not stay away so long.”

Nino looks to the bellflower. Though the blossom still glows, a little sun lighting up the rapidly cooling night, the leaves on the stalk droop, and the whole plant hangs low to the water, occasionally dipping down to touch its own shining reflection. When Nino turns back, Satoshi is already looking at him, a resigned kind of sadness in his eyes.

“Don’t go,” Satoshi says.

“Do you think I _want_ to leave?” Nino sighs. “But my family won’t be any safer if I wait here for the war to come to us.”

“Maybe the war won’t come,” Satoshi tries. The word still sits awkwardly on his tongue, and it is clear he is still unsure of what it means.

“It will,” Nino says. “We march out in a week, and if I don’t go willingly, they’ll drag me kicking and screaming.”

Nino pauses here, and the night is loud around them with crickets and tree frogs and nightbirds in animated chorus. He looks down at his hands, flexes them once and sends a jolt of light from one palm to the other. Nino can hear the snap and smell the ozone.

“And I think...I’m stronger now, so maybe...maybe I can really do something to change things.”

“I don’t want you to go,” Satoshi says, and then steps close to take Nino’s face in his hands. “But if you must, I will still help you.”

Nino is frozen, trapped in Satoshi’s stare and unable to move even as Satoshi’s face drifts closer to his own. But then, at the last moment, Satoshi goes up on his toes just a little to place his lips against Nino’s forehead. The touch is familiar, somehow, damp and warm. Out of the corner of his eye, Nino sees the light of the bellflower begin to change.

When Satoshi steps back and Nino can turn his head properly, he can see that the flower has gone from a sunny gold to a luminescent blue, and it is standing straight and tall again, its leaves glossy and lustrous.

“I will keep them safe,” Satoshi says.

*

A week later, the first snow of the season falls, blanketing the ground in a thin, even layer of white. Nino introduces Satoshi to his family for the first time, tells them about the pond and the spell and to do whatever Satoshi tells them, to stay safe. His mother and sister both cry, but accept Satoshi’s existence with surprisingly nonchalance.

Nino is determined not to look back as he walks down the main road and away from his house because he knows doing so would test his resolve past the breaking point. And so, with his eyes on the unbroken snow in front of him, Nino does not see Satoshi leading his family back up the hill, and does not see the ice that begins to form in their wake, coating the ground, climbing up tree trunks and across bare branches until the whole hill is encased in a crystalline shell.

*

Years pass, and years again, before the war is over. Nino does not win fame and fortune as a powerful mage, as he had secretly imagined--instead, he wins fame and fortune and the favor of his commanders as a brilliant strategist, and even after the battles have ceased, the enemy has surrendered, the shadows are gone from the forest, Nino is paraded through the capitol and before the people and made to attend all manner of ceremonies that he has absolutely no interest in.

Finally, he is able to go home. He rides alone, for days and days with as little rest as he can manage without falling from his horse. He reaches the little wooded hill in the dead of night and his footsteps carry him, not up the dirt path to the house, but into the trees and towards the pond. It is winter, and it is almost as if he never left: the ground is still covered in snow, unbroken and sparkling under the light of a full moon. He left his horse tethered to the fence by the road, so he is alone when he comes to the pond.

And then, his heart stops. The bellflower is closed, and dark

Everything is still, not a sound in the world but Nino’s own breathing. The ground and even the trees are covered with a layer of frost, and it crackles underfoot as Nino steps closer. The moon is reflected perfectly in the center of the unmoving water in the pond.

_“This is the heart of the spell. It will stay strong as long as you are near.”_

Nino crouches down. Snow has gathered in the roots around the bellflower, obscuring most of it. Nino has been at war for seven years. The kingdom has been at war for even longer, and he had thought he had prepared himself for the possibility of having nothing to come home to, but at the sight of the quiescent flower, he feels the last bit of himself that he had kept from the war crumble into heartbreak.

“Satoshi,” he whispers, but doesn’t cry because he is all out of tears. “What has happened to you? I am sorry. Seven years was too long to stay away.”

He knows he should go, up to the house to--to take care of whatever is left, but he stays by the pond, watching his breath rise into the air, wondering what there could possibly be left for him, now.

And then the stag appears.

As quietly as it did all those years ago, the great deer approaches the pond and steps up next to Nino. They stare at eachother for a few long moments, before the stag bends his head to drink. Nino watches the ripples spread out across the water in slow, slow circles, making the reflection of the moon dance. When the ripples reach the other side of the pond, they still ring like tiny silver bells. Nino has to close his eyes then, and he feels his breath grow ragged as a lifetime of memories assails him in the space of a moment.

When he opens his eyes again, the stag is gone. Satoshi is there instead.

Nino starts, then his hands shoot out in an instinctive move to grab Satoshi’s shoulders, half expecting to meet empty air. But the Satoshi before him is no wraith or illusion, and he smiles at Nino like the first dawn breaking.

“Nino,” he says. “You’re home.”

“You’re here,” Nino says, breathless, pulling Satoshi to his feet. “But you--the flower--why--”

“We slept, while we waited for you,” Satoshi explains, like the answer is obvious. “I put it all to sleep.”

“They’re alive?” Nino demands. “My family, they’re all right?”

“Of course,” Satoshi replies. “I told you I would keep them safe.”

“You--” Nino chokes on whatever he might have said next, his relief and joy so overwhelming it is almost painful. He drinks in the sight of Satoshi’s face, his smile, here before him and real and solid under his hands. “Thank you,” he manages finally. “Thank you.” And then he leans in and Satoshi meets him halfway.

Satoshi’s mouth is warm and eager and open, and Satoshi’s arms come around Nino’s back in a fierce embrace. Nino swears he can hear bells, cathedrals and symphonies, and there are sunbursts behind his eyelids. But then he gasps out of the kiss and looks across the pond.

The bell flower has burst open, and is glowing, a blue so bright it is almost white. And all around it, peeking out of the snow and climbing the trunk of the pine, more flowers just like it, and these in indigo, gold, lavender, orange--all shades of blue and yellow and everything in between.

“Is it over, now, your war?” Satoshi murmurs. “Will you stay?”

When Nino turns back, Satoshi is still smiling, but Nino can see past it now, to the seven-year ache in his eyes that Nino knows so well. Nino has a moment, a revelation: for a fay creature like Satoshi, seven years have likely never before seemed like a long time.

“Of course,” Nino says, already bringing their lips together again. “Yes. I’ll stay.”


End file.
